The future of the cobol programming language

The Future of
the COBOL
Programming
Language
Karl Schenk
University of Wisconsin-Platteville
Department of Computer Science and Software
Engineering

About Me

Senior (Fifth Year)

Majors:

Computer Science (CIS)

Business Administration (CS)

Related Jobs

UW-Platteville OIT – Lab Consultant

John Deere Dubuque Works – Part Time
Student Information Technology

Topics

Introduction


What is COBOL?

COBOL Structure

COBOL History

COBOL-2002

Object Oriented COBOL

XML and COBOL

Micro Focus and Net Express

KOBOL

COBOL and higher Education

Employment Opportunities and COBOL

Conclusion

Introduction

“I’ve coded in COBOL but never
compiled”

150-200 Billion Lines of COBOL

Up to 2 billion Lines added each

year

Most COBOL is used at large
corporations and by government

Topics

Introduction

What is COBOL?

COBOL Structure

COBOL History

COBOL-2002

Object Oriented COBOL

Micro Focus and Net Express

KOBOL

XML and COBOL

COBOL and higher Education

Employment Opportunities and COBOL

Conclusion

What is COBOL?

Common Business Oriented
Language

Procedural Language

Third Generation Language

Compiled Language

Most often used on Mainframes
but is on PC’s too.

What is COBOL?

What is COBOL?

What is COBOL?

What is COBOL?

Topics

Introduction

What is COBOL?

COBOL Structure


COBOL History

COBOL-2002

Object Oriented COBOL

XML and COBOL

Micro Focus and Net Express

KOBOL

COBOL and higher Education

Employment Opportunities and COBOL

Conclusion

COBOL Structure

Hierarchical

English-Like

Add 1 to Counter Giving Counter

4 Divisions

Identification, Environment, Data,

and Procedure

COBOL Structure

Identification Division

Program Name

Other items like programmer and
compile date should be comments

Environment Division

Describes the hardware the program
is running on

Briefly describes the data files

COBOL Structure

Data Division

Defines all data

Files and Working Storage

Procedure Division

Logic of the program


Divided into Paragraphs

COBOL Structure

Code is restricted by columns

1-6 – Line numbers

7 - Comment area

8-72 – Margins A and B (code)

73-80 – Identification and labels

Cobol Structure
“Hello World”
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
Program-Id. Hello-World.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
DATA DIVISION.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
100-PARAGRAPH.
DISPLAY "Hello, world.".
Stop Run.

Topics

Introduction

What is COBOL?


COBOL Structure

COBOL History

COBOL-2002

Object Oriented COBOL

XML and COBOL

Micro Focus and Net Express

KOBOL

COBOL and higher Education

Employment Opportunities and COBOL

Conclusion

COBOL History

1959 Department of Defense
wanted a universal Business
Application Language

CODASYL was formed

11 Government and 15 Commercial

attendees

COBOL History

COBOL-61

ANSI/ISO Standards

COBOL-65

COBOL-74

COBOL-85

COBOL-2002

Technical Reviews

Topics

Introduction

What is COBOL?

COBOL Structure

COBOL History

COBOL-2002


Object Oriented COBOL

XML and COBOL

Micro Focus and Net Express

KOBOL

COBOL and higher Education

Employment Opportunities and COBOL

Conclusion

COBOL-2002
Topic Brief Description
Margins A & B
Restrictions on data placed in these margins will no
longer be requirements, only recommendations
Identification Division.
Only paragraph permitted in this division will be the
Identification Division.
Name Lengths Increased from 30 to 60 characters
Comments In-line comments will be allowed after a *> symbol
Arithmetic Operators Spaces will not be required around operators
Sort
The SORT keyword can now be used on both tables
and files
Deletion of Files
A DELETE statement will allow deletion of an entire

file with only one instruction.

Topics

Introduction

What is COBOL?

COBOL Structure

COBOL History

COBOL-2002

Object Oriented COBOL

XML and COBOL

Micro Focus and Net Express

KOBOL

COBOL and higher Education

Employment Opportunities and COBOL

Conclusion

Object Oriented COBOL
“A programming paradigm in which

a program is viewed as a
collection of discrete objects
that are self-contained
collections of data structures
and routines of an object.”
Microsoft Computer Dictionary

Object Oriented COBOL

Requires 2 Programs

Driver

Trigger

Object Oriented COBL
Driver Program

Registers the class

Declares Object Reference data-
items

Creates an object from the class

Accesses a method from the class

Cleans up memory